Germany has recently taken a chilling new step, signalling its willingness to use political views as grounds to curb migration. Authorities are now moving to deport foreign nationals for participating in pro-Palestine actions. As I reported this week in the Intercept, four people in Berlin – three EU citizens and one US citizen – are set to be deported over their involvement in demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza. None of the four have been convicted of a crime, and yet the authorities are seeking to simply throw them out of the country.
The accusations against them include aggravated breach of the peace and obstruction of a police arrest. Reports from last year suggest that one of the actions they were alleged to have been involved in included breaking into a university building and threatening people with objects that could have been used as potential weapons.
But the deportation orders go further. They cite a broader list of alleged behaviours: chanting slogans such as “Free Gaza” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, joining road blockades (a tactic frequently used by climate activists), and calling a police officer a “fascist”. Read closely, the real charge appears to be something more basic: protest itself.
I don’t think we disagree on these points. I’ll reply to more of your arguments once I have the time, but for now the main question I was asking myself was: How can we at the same time do our duty to Isreal as remembrance of the Holocaust, and actively oppose what Israel does right now? We would have to cross the line, and actually say things that everyone says we shouldn’t because of our history. My personal view is that our debts are paid, and we should go back to just rationally follow international law again. But it’s not an easy situation for our politicians, because most of the world still expects us to essentially not do that. What do you think could be the solution? In my opinion, essentially Germany has to emancipate it from its “Urschuld”